SAKURA SCIENCE High School Program Group 7
Visiting JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology)
On Thursday, December 14, Chinese and Indian high school students and supervisors visited Japan as the seventh group of the SSHP. They visited the Yokosuka headquarters of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) to tour and experience the facility.
After receiving an explanation describing an overview of the organization from the organization guide in the exhibition area, they went on following two tours and experiences.
1. Tour of Exhibition Facility
The students took turns sitting in the cockpit of a full-size model of the manned diving research ship "Shinkai 6500" and going inside the pressure-resistant shell composed of a complete sphere. Everyone was intrigued by the space where the three crew members spent eight hours.
In the biology exhibition room, unique creatures living in the deep sea were introduced. In the video introduction of how the chrysomallon squamiferum that has scales containing iron sulfide which sticks to a magnet, one student said "let me see that again!" As the top predator in the deep sea, it was also seen lying down next to a large poster of a narcetes shonanmaruae that has been found to be as large as 2 m 50 cm.
2. Lecture on Marine Plastics Research
Among the research and development of the oceans and the earth that JAMSTEC is conducting, the students listened to an introduction of initiatives related to "marine plastic research." They introduced the current situation that about 99% of the plastic waste dumped into the ocean is missing. They introduced problems caused by the dumped marine plastic waste, and JAMSTEC's three approaches of investigation, analysis, and simulation. Lastly, they used a microscope to discover plastic (microplastics) that has is less than 5 mm in size in the sand on beaches, and the students were able to experience the process of extracting that plastic using a tweezer. All of the students took the subject very seriously.
It was a valuable opportunity for the international high school students to deepen their understanding of the current situation, the problems, and the efforts being made to solve the problem.
